Whatever our brains have to process affects us on some level. People who say they are not affected are fooling themselves. The brain makes synaptic pathways for everthing, and so we remember things and what we thought and felt about them, and repeated things reinforce those pathways until we get habits or addictions, whether it is looking at math flash cards to memorize the multiplication table or ***. The brain makes the same synaptic pathways for concrete reality as for virtual reality.

What rp's we do can be either constructive or destructive to us and those around us. Negative and dark rp's can affect us negatively much more than we like to think over time, just as being in negative concrete envioronments can.

Some ppl emote more than others both in concrete reality and virtual reality, while some people tend to repress feelings in concrete reality and vent them in virtual reality, thinking wrongly that it's safer.

Many kinds of therapy groups use rp in their therapy as a safer way to experiment in trying new coping skills with much success. This is done usually by being given a certain simple situation to rp about and then trying various ways to deal with that situation. A small group of people will be in thne rp and give feedback as to how they are reacting to each other.

So, yes, more than just laugh at funny stuff, get hot, or mad, or whatever , our rp can form good habits and bad habits of thinking. For this reason I'm kind of careful about what I get involved in in rp, or what movies I watch, cuz I am immersing myself in a virtual environment, and hey, I choose to be uplifted and not get into any more hell than is necessary.

Negative and dark rp's can affect us negatively much more than we like to think over time, just as being in negative concrete envioronments can.

I disagree. You're putting the cart in front of the horse. Nature wins out over nurture every time And people with destructive impulses are much better off sublimating them into fiction rather than letting them spill out into reality ..._________________"We're only human/Seperated by our thoughts/So hang on to them, or you'll find you might get caught/Caught up in the 'Hey! Monkey See and Monkey Do!'/Must they get brainwashed by what's surrounding you?!" -- Skye Sweetnam

I read this article yesterday called "Losing Yourself in a Fictional Character" and thought it was perfect for this thread. It's about a study done at the Ohio State University concerning "experience-taking". Experience-taking is what happens when people who, while reading a fictional story, find themselves feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters.

Quote:

Experience-taking doesn't happen all the time. It only occurs when people are able, in a sense, to forget about themselves and their own self-concept and self-identity while reading.

I thought this was really interesting because role-playing is often about forgetting yourself to become another person. I've been heavily role-playing the same witty, flirty character for about a month now and have been avoiding OOC comments most of the time to keep myself immersed in the current game. Nowadays, I can hear his appropriate response to certain situations as a little voice in the back of my head. Sometimes I find myself actually saying his responses.

Call me crazy, but my characters do have an effect on my life.

Of course, I don't think it could possibly be a bad thing. Our characters in one sense or another are a part of ourselves that we have projected into a fictional individual. I think that role-playing has the ability to make us look through the eyes of someone who is not like us while still reaching us on an intimate level. They also help to release inhibitions since we have essentially tested personalities and dialogues on several guinea pigs and are more prepared for certain responses.

Perhaps I should play a darker, evil character and see how he/she affects me. Hmmm.